Sometimes I Forget

Last night it was about 3 in the morning when LJ came in and came up to bed. I'd been asleep for a couple of hours, but I woke up while he was sitting on the edge of the bed eating his dinner. I've learned, from hard experience, that there is no such thing as choosing a time for a conversation with LJ--it just happens and that's how it is, and we can sleep when we're dead, I guess.

"Everything's all fucked up," he told me. "I found out a bunch of stuff I didn't know before today."

And he told me about one of his friends, part of his circle of supply and demand. This is someone LJ spent a lot of time with over the past few months; someone he's taken road trips with, someone he's known for many years. Now he's got three separate groups of people after him, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. This guy fucked with the wrong people, LJ told me. He got in over his head and then tried to fix it by getting in even deeper, and now he's in so deep that it's very likely the only way it's gonna end is with a murder. It's not like he can undo what he did, or like he can apologize. The streets don't work like that.

LJ tried to play it off like everything else--this is how it is, this is the game as it's played--but I could tell he was a little shaken. This guy, he said...he came up before any of us. He was the one who did it right. He just got....thirsty, I guess. Doin' stupid shit.

I told him to be careful, that I wasn't going through that again, and he told me he's cutting all ties. I believe that; LJ, for all his quirks, has a strong self-preservative instinct. All his friends have been locked up at least once, most of them three or four times; not LJ. Even doing what he does, he's got a good head on his shoulders. But when I come in at the end of the day and hand him the keys to the truck and hug him and tell him "Be careful" as he walks out the front door, sometimes I forget: I'm not sending him off to some cushy office job. Anything can happen.

Updated

I've posted some updates to the novel, reachable through the link at the top of the sidebar.

Bitchiest Bitch That Ever Bitched

I didn't get the Dream Job. But I don't feel bad about it, because nobody else got it either. Apparently after the hiring guy went back to the East Coast, the Powers that Be decided it was time for a 6-month hiring freeze. So now the Chicago office has no tech. Wonder how they're gonna handle THAT?? Still, I'm disappointed.

I'd be less disappointed if I wasn't so sick of my job. Without going into the details, because god knows I've raved on enough about my job and I hate the feeling that it's somehow become the center of my life when it's actually the part that means the LEAST, I'll just say: it ain't good. I mean, I'm not the only one who thinks so, but that's small consolation. And if anyone can tell me how "not following the consultant down the stairs to make sure he talks to the person he said he was going to talk to" equates with "not being in charge"--particularly when I AM NOT THE PROJECT MANAGER--then you are cordially invited to take over my job and more power to you. Those of you who CAN'T explain how those two things equate are in the same boat as I, and we can all go out for drinks.

I finally got to give the Cute Brit a ride home from work yesterday. He's just so very damn cool, and one of the few people at Place Where I Work who understands the magnitude of the fuckuppery re: the new database. (I advanced the radical suggestion yesterday that all the work that's been entered into the new system should be re-entered into the old system, and the new system scrapped til it works. Never gonna happen, but it's the way to go. Everyone I've mentioned this to agrees with me--and that includes the Brit, who would be one of the main people doing the work of re-entering the data if it DID go down that way.) I think people are starting to think there's something going on between us, or that there should be--in no small part due to Evil Stella, who has just been eviller than evil every time he shows up. But even Irene, who shares an office-space with him and is just the sweetest lady in the world, gave me one of those encouraging motherly looks yesterday when I came over to let him know I was ready to leave. My motto applies here: "Let 'em wonder."

The high point of my day came at 8:26 PM, however, when Ryan Seacrest spake the immortal words: "Constantine. You are going home tonight." My whoop of joy woke White Cat from a sound sleep. That's what you get for singing a shitty Nickelback song, you ass-chinned tool. (In other American Idol news: Bo Bice. I would SO do Bo Bice. And I agree with the poster over at TWOP who said that she would have to rethink her usual "doin' it" music and put on KMFDM instead, for all the dirty rough things she'd do to him. MrrrrrOWRRRR. The man is hot, people. Hot like a cult leader, but hot nonetheless.)

And now that I have outed myself as a total dork, I will slink off to sleep.

Morning In The Hood

Walking to the bus this morning I passed an old man on the other side of the street, walking in the opposite direction. He was maybe 70 or so, carrying a big black plastic trash bag for picking up bottles and cans.

Verbatim, a transcript of our conversation, shouted across the street:

Him: "You happen to have a quarter, a dime, a nickel, or a penny?"

Me: "No, I'm sorry, I don't." (Not true. But it's three days before payday and those are my LUNCH quarters, dammit.)

Him: "You got a beautiful body..."

Me (blushing): "Thank you!" (Though it did occur to me to think how could he even TELL in this outfit? Baggy, my friends. Baggy.)

Him: "Wanna smoke a rock?"

Me: "Um, no thanks...."

And off he went for more bottles and cans, and off I went to work. Without, might I add, having smoked a rock--although that might have mitigated somewhat my dread of this day, which promises to be the bitchiest bitch that ever bitched.

Most Dangerous

Sometimes I think I've gotta get over this whole thing I have about not hurting people. I mean, it's kept me honest for eleven years or so--give or take, and not counting what happened with Bob--but I'm starting to think that maybe if I didn't worry so much about everyone else's happiness, I might actually have a chance for some of my own.

And I don't mean "stop worrying about it" in terms of "don't focus on being nice but don't focus on NOT being nice either"--I mean actively allowing my not-so-nice side to come out and play once in a while.

I got a call from Terrence today--like I don't get a call from Terrence EVERY day, like he's not still trying to hit it as soon as he can. I really really wish I WAS into him like that--just for the feeling of being in control of something, or not in control of something different. I'm ready to raise hell; this placid little emotionless life is wearing me down, and how do you tell that to someone? "Oh, well, see, LJ, I know you said I can bring you anything that's bothering me, so here it is: you're kind of emotionless and all you SEEM to care about is money, and I have this active inner life that you know nothing about and I just can't deal with this kind of loneliness anymore? And I've sorta been waiting around for a couple of years now, hoping that it was just some wall you were keeping up as a defense--god knows I'd sympathize with THAT--but after two years I've come to the conclusion that you're actually ALL walls, with no rooms behind them? But really, you're a great guy--it's nothing personal..." Yeah, that conversation would go well.

And regardless of how ready to raise hell my brain is, my body is not (with the exceptions of a certain region slightly north of the femurs--in fact, I'm fairly sure that's where much of this hell-raisingness originates from.) I think I've lost maybe 7 or 8 pounds so far, but 7 or 8 lost out of the hundred I NEED to lose--well, it's not really noticeable just yet. Not exactly the sort of look that brings the men running, if you catch my drift.

"Why do you need a man anyway?" I hear you asking. Two important facts: 1) I don't do well in meaningless sexual relationships; and 2) celibacy makes me vaguely psychotic. You can see the quandary I'm in here. Adding to the mess, the sort of men I'm physically attracted to are the ones least likely to be emotionally and/or intellectually attractive--and vice versa. Even the Cute Brit, as amazingly cool as he is, ain't exactly my cup of tea physically. But in his case I might be willing to make an exception, simply because I have my suspicions that he and I harbor certain similar darknesses, which--if it were true--would compensate for almost anything else. (Not that it matters--as I must repeatedly remind myself, he has a girlfriend.)

Sometimes I wish I could go back through my life and figure out exactly where I got twisted--at what moment I completely diverged from the path I was raised for. I mean, in high school and all through college there was Chris, who was like The Perfect Boy--good grades, hardworking, goal-oriented, extremely intelligent, wanted to marry me and have one of those normal lives. And aside from an entirely-unfounded fear, based in one too many romantic movies or something, that he didn't love me "enough", I was fine with all of it. I had these little dark pockets that he didn't quite get, and among them was my thing with Darius--but I was willing to compartmentalize that and head forward...until the summer after I finished school, and came home and within three weeks I'd met JP and everything was turned completely upside down--if not visibly, at least inside. But I can't pin down the moment where everything got tangled up. Maybe it was much sooner--maybe back in high school, I don't know.

I just know I have a life very different from any I would have ever imagined for myself. And in many ways that's good--and I don't regret anything, really, though I can point to at least one glaring instance where I would change the outcome, regardless of what I do or don't regret. But the problem with the life I've got is that it allows for more catastrophes and mistakes than most. There are people who have more stringent lists of standards by which to judge potential partners, and they seem to get hurt much less than I do--but I just have to believe that they have much less chance for transcendence that way, much less chance for someone amazing to come into their lives from outside their little boundaries. Don't get me wrong--I have my "type"--but I think it encompasses a wider range than most.

I only wish it was working.

The Coolest Thing EVER

I've had a geekified sort of day today.

It started last night, actually, when I decided to play "let's fuck around with Yahoo Launchcast Radio". I have now built myself THE ULTIMATE radio station...unfortunately, it's under my real ID, so I am going to rebuild it as Gladys so I can share it with you. I have found ALL the music, every stitch of it, that's tied into my JP memories--obscure, insane, impossible shit which iTunes never even DREAMED of, and all our radio music as well.

My one complaint is that they have that "suggested" thing--just because I like A Perfect Circle, for example, it assumes that I will probably like Nickelback. When in fact, I would sooner remove important internal organs than listen to Nickelback. (It's a CR thing. His taste in old-school R&B was just impeccable, but when it came to rock, things got very peccable indeed.)

Then I started hunting through the Blogger help files and learned all sorts of new things...like how to make little individual bits of text be different colors, or how to make the first letter of each post be capital. Except I can't seem to make that one work--it'll make it a different color, but it won't resize. Whatev.

Some of you may have been here before:

elevenevele Today I learned how to blog a book, so here it is: my story, or as much of it as I've written down thus far. (Actually that's not true either--there's more, it's just on the upstairs computer, the one I haven't bothered to hook up to the network yet.) I have promised myself that I will have the whole thing written by October 30th of this year. And then I am going to have it published (under this name, not my real one) and that is that. Failure, in this case, is not an option. I am not made to work in an office--even an outrageously fucking cool one like the one I interviewed at yesterday. And I've always sorta known I didn't want to do tech support forever--it's like everything else I've done with my career so far, a compromise until I could do the things I really wanted. And a compromise of that order of magnitude was a lot easier to swallow when I was twenty-one than now, six weeks shy of thirty-five. A woman has her limits, after all.

When I was twelve I wanted to be a writer. When I was twenty-four I thought I was someday going to be a writer. By the time I'm thirty-six, I WILL be a writer. And hopefully, whatever comes next, it won't take me another twelve years to get off my ass about it.

Thus Upward Mobility Doth Make Idiots of Us All

Well, fuck.

It is cold and rainy here in Chi--cold to the point that "rainy" may actually be "sleety" within a couple of hours. And today was the Big Yearly Meeting at work.

The BYM is an all-day affair, involving lots of out-of-state folks who make a special trip for the express purpose of having their asses bored COMPLETELY off. And every year the only mitigating factor is a really good free lunch at one of the restaurants near Place Where I Work. All the coordinators and major staff have to be at the meeting; the support staff get to stay behind and do support-staff things, but they DO get invited to lunch.

The other problem with the BYM: it's a dressy affair. We're expected to look like human beings, which means that once a year these people get to see me in a dress. Which makes me grievously uncomfortable, in many many ways. Mostly because everyone takes the opportunity to tell me how "nice" I look. Well fuck. I don't WANT to be noticed like that. It makes me want to hunch my shoulders and hide behind my hair. (Amy, my supervisor, once opined that I dress the way I do because I am "uncomfortable with my femininity". Which I think was a veiled way of implying that I was a lesbian or something. I wanted to tell her "no, I'm uncomfortable with itmes of clothing that involve nylons. Because they suck, and were clearly invented by men. I am also uncomfortable with about 99% of all forms of attention.")

So today, I wore my dress. (Yes, my ONE dress. I own others; they do not fit.) And of course, got the usual reaction. Which caused in me the usual counter-reaction--the hunch and hide.

Well, mostly.

See, I knew the Cute Brit would be at lunch. And yeah, I was a little stoked for that. We're getting to be pretty good buddies, me and the Brit--being the two political freaks in an office full of just-left-of-mainstreamers will cause bonding, I've found. We also have a lot in common. For instance, we both agree that the database guy should be impaled on a fence-post somewhere and left for the vultures. In fact, both of us would willingly purchase vultures just for the purpose.

Typically understated, his comment when he saw me was, "Well! Look at you!" And that was about the most reaction I would have wanted--anything more and I would have gone off and cowered in a corner somewhere. We sat at the same table for lunch, along with an assortment of the office's quirkier personalities.

At the end of lunch, I offered everyone at my table a ride back to the building, since I had the truck and needed to go back anyway. He was the only one who took me up on it, which...yeah, :::squeeeee!::: So I drove him back and, in a burst of inspired non-flirting, offered him a ride home as he got out. And he said, "That would be great!" Which, ALSO ::::squeeeeeee!::::

And then I got back to my office.

I thought to myself "You know, I'd better see if I missed any calls on my cellphone during lunch." So I took my phone out, and it started ringing in my hand.

"Hello, is this Gladys? This is Kim, from the agency? You know that job you were interested in? Well, I have some good news. They want to interview you. And I have some bad news, too...they want to interview you TODAY." Turns out the hiring guy was in from the East Coast office, and they'd scheduled all their interviews for yesterday and today, and I wasn't even going to get an interview because they had already scheduled them all, but then someone cancelled and they asked for me instead.

Now, how perfect is THAT? On the ONE day that I've worn a dress, got the car, and can make an escape with minimal fuss, I get this call to interview for what's essentially my ideal job. So of course I said yes.

And then I had to call my Brit and tell him "hey, I have to rescind my offer..."

He was fine with it, of course--he knows I'm job-hunting and cheers me on every time I go on an interview--but...::::waaaaaaahhhhhh.:::::::

So, putting potential chemistry aside, I went on my interview. Which I don't think I did such a hot job with--they apparently need more network-hardware skills than I've got--but we shall see.

If I don't get this job, however, I think I will kick myself in the ass. Repeatedly.

Ten Years

I wrote this the other night when I should have been paying attention in my Food Service Sanitation class. It will (probably) find its way into the book.

(Yes, there is too a book. I just haven’t blogged any of it yet.)

4/19: Oklahoma City

I watch the disaster at the Murrah Federal Building with a syringe in my arm.

It is the first day of our spring break, JP and I, and I’ve been paid the Friday before. Free from work and flush with cash, we have spent the weekend in our eternal pursuits—planning and scoring and shooting and fucking, again and again. It is April and spring is in full gear in Wicker Park, and JP has his guitar and I have my computer and we have amps and four-tracks and CDs and music and poetry and smack, and there is nothing else we need.

We turn on the TV this morning and watch the first bulletins, nodding between shots, shooting between speculations. It is all horrible, of course, but we have heroin and each other.

We watch the newscasters searching for the story—and we measure water.
We watch the graphics of a pancaking building—and we hold the spoon over the flame.
We listen to speculations about Arab terrorists—and we tie off, looking for veins.
We watch footage of tearful rescuers and bloody babies—and we press the plunger.

The coverage goes on for a week. And for a week we plan and score and shoot and fuck, again and again, and watch.

There is a world outside—but it is not our world. In our world the only things that can go wrong are missed shots and overdoses, going broke or getting burned, going sick or getting busted. Bombs and buildings, blood and babies, suicidal Arabs or gun-mad white men with the taste of Waco and Ruby Ridge at the back of their throats—they can move us, maybe, but they can never touch us. We are young and brilliant and going-to-be-famous, and we are invincible, and safe.

Cryptic (Needs To Be Said Anyway)

Yes, one of those people I was talking about was you.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I probably don't mean you.)

Ratzinger

"There goes the American Church."
--nameless co-worker

Go Here

I know I've mentioned Firefly before. Firefly is one of my oldest friends (since college!) and both of us have spent way longer than most people trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up, whenever THAT happens.

Well, she got there first. (The figuring-out, not the growing-up. Neither one of us has managed THAT yet.)

This is Firefly's website, and her big dream. She's trying to get to the Amazon--she explains the resons on her site--and unfortunately, because of where she lives and the sucky economy, the financials are getting in the way. (You know--the way they get in the way for the rest of us. The difference is, she's trying to do something about it.)

Give her a hand, if you can.....

On Being Terminally Pink

Stella has always said that the biggest benefit of being black is that no one knows when you're blushing. Generally this comment comes after she's provoked me into an unnatural shade of magenta, a tactic for which she has an almost-unfailing instinct.

Ian, as predicted, came back Wednesday. I had finally decided to take a "sick (of you bastard people and your bastard database)" day, so I didn't get to talk to him til yesterday.

This morning I got a call from Beverly. (Fridays are Beverly's day off, but generally she plagues the life out of me from a distance anyway.) "I was talking to Samuel yesterday," she said, "and he said Ian was having problems with the new database and he's pretty sure it's Ian's computer. So do we have a spare we can give him?" I told her I would look into it.

Ten minutes later, I get a call from Cathy. "Beverly says for you to give Ian a new computer," she told me.

"Yes, I know," I told her. "I just got off the phone with her."

Fifteen minutes later? Ian calls. "Beverly told me to call you and tell you to get me a new computer," he said.

"Yeah, that's what I've been hearing," I told him.

"So when can I have it?" he asked. (Any question, even a question being asked for the third time in less than half an hour, is less annoying when delivered in a British accent.)

"Well, I mean, it depends on when we order it, and..."

"What about Delora's old computer?" he asked.

Delora's been gone for about two months now, and her position still hasn't been filled. And she did have a practically-new computer, which I had totally not thought of. "Okay...I'll set it up and call you when it's ready."

So, about an hour later, I call him and tell him he can come over for his computer. And of course, evil evil Stella is right there.

Stella is absolutely my best friend at work. She started about a year after I did, and even though she's substantially older and from an entirely different background, when we get together we act like a couple of high-school freshmen, laughing and giggling and shit-talking all over the place. Nancy, Stella's officemate, is in on most of the goofiness as well--a holdover from the few months when the three of us shared an office, before they decided it would be better to separate us. Even Big Boss Beverly, on the days when Satan is NOT possessing her brain, occasionally joins in the fun. So I know Stella well enough to know that trouble is coming when she does what she does next.

She walks up to Rachel, one of the assistants, and puts out her hand. "Slap me," she says. "I'm being evil."

"All right, what did you do this time?" I ask her from around the corner of the desk.

"Well, I haven't done it yet," she said.

"Are you gonna provoke Hank some more? Do you need to go to church?"

"No...I was just gonna start talking about YOU."

"Oh, like THAT would be a change. Like you don't ALREADY put my business out in the street regularly...."

She looks over my shoulder and positively SIMPERS: "Oh, HIIIII, Ian...."

Fortunately my back was to Ian at this point, and at any rate he was more focussed on getting his new computer, because I swear to you I felt curls of smoke come off the tips of my ears. You could have grilled a steak on my face, I was so flushed. And of course, Stella and Rachel start giggling.

"See?" Stella says. "That's the nice thing about being black. Nobody can see when you're doing THAT!"

And of course, I'm laughing my ass off at this point, because I can recognize that yes, I've been got--and I know full well that yes, I do look like a tomato. So I do the only two things I can reasonably do to maintain my dignity under the circumstances: one, shoot Stella the bird, and two, head out to the other building.

Thank god for the other building.

I have GOT to learn to control my blood vessels.

Cell Phones At 50 Paces

That showdown I mentioned?

I got home today and LJ was waiting by the door, ready to leave as soon as I got home. He was explaining a couple of business things to me--including the info that he's waiting for one of his friends to get out of jail so he can take a little bit of the pressure off LJ. "So I won't be running around as much," he said.

"But you still will," I replied.

"Well, yeah, but it'll be more about some quick money and everything."

"So," I persisted. "Net benefits to me--zero."

He just looked.

"You're not really into this whole having-a-girlfriend thing, are you?" I asked.

"What you mean?" he asked. "I mean, I'm used to it by now..."

"Not the same thing," I told him. "Not the same thing at all. Anyway. Bye..." And closed the door behind him, locking both locks.

I sat down at the computer and couldn't concentrate. "USED to it"??? The FUCK does THAT mean?

Finally I went to my bag to get my cellphone, to communicate in the best way I can manage most of the time: text.

"I don't want someone who's just 'used to me'," I typed. "I want someone who actually thinks I'm worth time & effort. If that's not u, u need 2 let me know."

I stood there with my finger on the "SEND" button for almost fifteen minutes, too scared to light the fuse on this particular stick of dynamite. And then I thought, even if he leaves, what am I going to lose?

I hit "SEND". A couple of minutes later the phone rang.

"Hello?"
"Yeah--what now?"
Oh, fuck you. "You know what? Nevermind."
"What you mean, nevermind?"
"If you're gonna start out with 'what now?' every time I say somethin', then never-fuckin'-mind." (My finger was hovering over the hangup button, at this point--I was properly pissed.)
"You don't never say anything, though!"
Oh, you've gotta be kidding."No, I say it--you don't listen! I have a hard time bringing stuff up like that, so if I open my mouth to say something, you best believe it's because it's actually BOTHERING me!"
"So--what, you think I'm using you or something?"
"Honestly? I don't know WHAT to think. I mean, I feel like I'm a roommate you don't like very much! I'm starting to wonder if maybe you're ashamed of me or something..."
"You think I'm ashamed of you."
"Dude, you never take me out of this house! I don't know WHAT the hell you're thinking, and I feel like I never get an answer out of you no matter how many times I try to find out!"

Long pause.

"Yeah, I hear you. I mean, I don't know...I don't have anything to say, right now, because I'm kinda in the middle...well, not in the MIDDLE of something, but I went outside for a minute to call you and everything."
"I know. We can talk about this later...this isn't...I'm not trying to have a fight over the phone or anything like that. We can talk when you get home."
"Nah...I mean, we've been gonna talk 'later' for like three months, and it ain't happened yet!" (Well hallelujiah--the lights are on after all.)

Things got substantially better from there. The highlights (completely out of context, but still):

Me: "I'm not with you for money, I'm with you for companionship!"

Him: "I take care of my stuff and you take care of everything else. But if you get into a tight spot, who are you gonna ask? And if I ain't got it, how's that gonna make me feel??"

Also him: "You need to know if somethin's botherin' you, that you can bring it to me no matter what."

Me(in reply to "I know when I pull up to that house that everything's all good,"):"That's EXACTLY why I don't bring shit up when you come home! I mean, if I know that whatever I'm gonna say is gonna interrupt your peace and quiet...well YEAH I'm gonna shut up!!" ("Depends on what it is," he replied, which...okay, yeah.)

After about half an hour of talking, I came out with the following impression: I'm dealing with a very functional, no-nonsense man who takes it for granted that if something's bugging me, I'll let him know. (My reluctance to do so is MY problem, not so much his.) And even if he's not affectionate or anything like that, he actually cares about me quite a lot and respects me for sticking with him through the times when he had nothing. (He actually said that last part, which was certainly nice to hear.)

Of course, the conversation ended thus: "I'll probably be out LATE late tonight," he said. "It's _________'s birthday, and..."
"Oh, lord," I said.
"...and it's gonna be a drunk night," he finished.
"So translation: see you tomorrow?"
He laughed. "Somethin' like that. I'll see you tonight or tomorrow morning."

Hopefully this time he'll still have his glasses when he gets home.

I'm not so naive as to think this solves anything, but at least he's been put on notice that all is not well and something's gotta give. We'll see what comes of it.

Sick

Today Noreen's daughter brought the newest grandbaby in for ooh-ing and aah-ing purposes. And let me tell you, this was a CUTE kid. She did the little baby yawn and everything. They asked me if I wanted to hold her, but I said no--as an only child with no younger cousins, my baby-holding experience is minimal at best, and this one was just teeny-tiny, and squiggly. No thanks, you know?

Afterwards, I walked back up the steps to my office, and honestly I just wanted to go hide in the bathroom and cry. I don't want kids--I know, instinctively, that I wouldn't be very patient or understanding or any of those good-mom things--but somehow I wish it was even POSSIBLE. I see this late-20's suburban matron holding her newborn daughter, and I think I don't want the life she's got--but I WISH I wanted it. I wish that kind of normal was even on my radar screen of desirable things. To have that I would have to have all the trappings I -don't- want: an office-dwelling, ambitious man; concern for what others will think of me; a measure of upward mobility--when what I really want is just a job which can support me but which I can put out of my mind between 5:01 PM and 8:59 AM. Or, alternately, which I can immerse myself in and enjoy without all the office politics. Oh--and a man who adores me. Which is not something I can think about without ALSO wanting to go hide in the bathroom and cry.

I would have to say that this may be the hardest spring, emotionally, since JP died. I know a showdown is coming between me and LJ--he's so clearly not at all into having a girlfriend, and I'm at the point where I feel like I've been wasting my time for two years now. The only thing worse than this would be if it happened three years from now, the way it did with CR, and I will have wasted five years instead of just two. Once again I'm trying to earn love from someone who--for whatever reason--doesn't want to give it.

I am sick of happy people in love. They make me wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

Mondays Suck Anyway.

There's this guy at my work who, I must admit, I'm crushing on just a teeeeny bit.

First of all, his very EXISTENCE in this den of estrogen is a mighty miracle. Since I started here nearly 5 years ago, this is the first time we have had more than four men working full-time in our department. That's right--for five years now this department has been ninety percent female or greater. At one point, we had ONE guy. ONE. And all the guys we've had have been coordinators, til now. Ian is an assistant--answers phones, does data entry, etc. Somehow I find that more cool and admirable, somehow.

He's also got several of my favorite other things going on, all at once:

1. He's a musician (lead singer of what is apparently a moderately-famous Goth band. I didn't know there WERE moderately-famous Goth bands, but that only goes to show you.) I think I may need to add "musician" into my list of minimum qualifications for The Guy...none of the non-musicians ever seem to turn out quite right for me.
2. He has long hair. Very pretty long hair.
3. He has (squeeeeee!) a British accent. Apparently he came over a few years ago when he was married (so he's been down that road as well!) and has been staying here despite himself ever since.
4. He's got an anarchist streak a mile wide, and some really good conspiracy theories, and he's a pagan.

Unfortunately he's also got two major drawbacks:

1. He's a vegan. Not that I have a problem with that, but I am a barely-repentant carnivore and I question whether I could even be a vegetarian, let alone a vegan. (Though I'll admit, albeit grudgingly, that I've never met a fat vegan--so maybe there's something to think about, there.)
2. He has a girlfriend. And she's pretty. (He keeps a picture on his desk, which I also find cool and admirable. When I'm not bleeding out the eyes from jealousy, that is.)

We ride the same train in the morning, and generally we walk to work together and chat. Then a couple weeks ago he told me he was going to England for a week (with his pretty girlfriend....blargh), and so I braced myself for a week of boring train rides.

He was supposed to be back today, which was at least a minor motivating factor in my decision not to call in "sick"--as in "sick of you bastard people"--this morning. So as the train pulled into his regular stop, I'll admit, my tail was kinda wagging a bit.

Alas--no Ian.

I get to work and there's a schedule e-mail: "Ian will be back Wednesday."

Well, crap.

Stoopid unrequited crushes. Stoopid work. Stoopid Monday.

I Really Gotta Quit With These Realizations

Something occurred to me after reading this post from Flash:

It has now been over two years since anyone kissed me.

That is neither a typo nor an exaggeration. That is a fact.

And I've really gotta change my life.

And I'm Here WHY, Again?

A brilliant quote from LJ, regarding the bootleg DVD of "Million Dollar Baby" someone gave him yesterday...

"...if it ain't guns and dope in a movie, I don't too much watch it."

(Well. All right then. Good to know.)

New Blogs

In an effort to expand my horizons, I decided to do some "Next Blog" touring. (Normally I only do this to generate snark material, but I'm not feeling snarky this afternoon.)

And so I have added:
Annals of Mr. Hyde, one of Flash's commentors whose blog I found yesterday;
Connecticut Blog, whose politics I agree with;
Corrente, more radical than me;
Going to Pieces, written by a fellow quilter;
I'm An Intern In New York, which nearly made me pee myself;
Mr. Mystic, which is just interesting;
The Place Where We Live, another Chicago blog (who links to me!); and
What's New With You?, another blog that made me giggle.

I also added long-time commenters hooiz and spinsterwitch.

That oughtta keep you all busy for a while...

I'd Be A Much Nicer Person If I Wasn't Such A Nice Person

Values just suck. I've decided.

If it weren't for values, with which I find myself incomprehensibly burdened, I would be able to seize the benefits of not being a nice person.

I would be able, for instance, to listen to Terrence rambling on for two hours about how his beautiful, hateful, evil-hearted bitch of a girlfriend may or may not be cheating on him, how he's going to dump her any day now because it's really only a "business" relationship (he pays her bills and she fucks him once a week, and I think I know the name of THAT "business") but he's still in love with her anyway, and even though he'd fuck me to pieces if I gave him a chance, he's still telling me all this because he wants my "intelligent" advice ("You're like a guy, except...not a guy," he told me...and isn't that just what EVERY woman longs to hear?)

And if it weren't for my values I might be able, while listening to this, to see this as an opportunity. If it weren't for values I might be able to think to myself Hey, it might be nice to have a sugar-daddy, not to have to worry about money and bills for a change; it might be nice to have someone who actually cares about fucking, instead of having it be a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. (My life is a fucking case study for irony: finally I embraced my sexual side after twenty-some years of Catholic guilt, I get eighteen months to enjoy it, and then as celestial revenge I am given, in rapid succession, one guy who used sex to belittle me, one guy who wasn't very good at it, and one guy who just doesn't care one way or the other about it. Woohoo God! Good job, big guy! And hey--thanks for throwing in that job that makes sure I'm exhausted and broken-down enough not to expect better for myself. That was a nice bonus. For THIS I gave up heroin?) And Terrance is bankrolling this evil, might-be-cheating bitch and buying her Manolo Blahniks for dispensing one fuck and a torrent of emotional abuse per week, while I--you know, the one who keeps everything together and pays all the bills and cooks and cleans and takes care of her man and doesn't nag or bitch or anything--I've been wearing the same sneakers since Valentine's Day. Of 2004. Yeah, THAT shit's fair.

I don't want what she's got. (I wouldn't know what to do with a pair of Manolos. Sell them on eBay for grocery money, maybe.) I certainly don't want to be anyone's kept woman--especially not Terrance, who (despite some of the...erm, talents he has) just doesn't interest me like that. And no, I don't want the will or even the ability to manipulate people into doing things for me.

I just don't understand why hateful people get so much, and those of us who make a conscious effort NOT to be hateful get screwed at every turn.

"Oh, but you have happiness and internal peace that she will never have..." Yeah, that's great. And I'll sure be grateful for that when People's Energy starts accepting happiness in exchange for a winter's worth of heating fuel, or Food-4-Less puts an "internal peace" button on the debit-card reader. Even then I still wouldn't have enough for a sack of groceries. Internal peace, my ass--you know what I've got internally?? A sudden feeling that I'm actually just a biiiiig fucking sucker, that's what.

Yeah, I'm pissed. Twenty minutes from now I will convince myself that it's not worth it to be pissed. That's how I am. That's what I do. Even when there's an OUTSTANDING fucking reason to be pissed, I convince myself not to be. "What good will it do?" I tell myself. "What will it change?" I mouth a billion platitudes about "forgiveness" and "being the bigger person" and "just letting it go". There's no point to being angry, I tell myself. It won't make the situation any better.

Small problem, though: "Forgiving", "letting it go", "being the bigger person"--there's no satisfaction in it for me. Not even the satisfaction that those things are supposed to give you. I don't want revenge; I want an acknowledgement that I was fucked-over and that I didn't deserve it. I think of CR, sending me an e-mail throwing himself on my mercy, telling me what a horrible person he was. And all I could think when I read it was "Yeah, fine--what do you WANT, though??" And when I finally articulated that question, he got all indignant and told me I was reading him wrong. Poor, poor CR. Always misinterpreted; such a heart of gold he had. He always said he knew he was fucking me over. But he never STOPPED. And he never said I didn't deserve it. It was sort of implied that I did--that if I'd been prettier or sexier or freakier or whatever-the-fuck it was he wanted, that he wouldn't have had to do those things to me.

And then I think: he's not worth that kind of anger. And there I am again--"what good will it do?" "Be the bigger person."

You know what? FUCK the bigger person. And--while I'm on this particular tear--fuck all those bitches at work who lie about things they've said, or things I've done, or "forget" when I've done something right, and who have the fucking TEMERITY, when I bring it up or even just change my facial expression in a way that lets them know I'm on to their bullshit, to tell me: "Just let it go, Gladys." And fuck all the people who assume, when something goes wrong, that it's due to carelessness on my part and never-no-NEVER is there a chance that THEY did something wrong. Or that something went wrong AFTER it left my hands. (Hey Noreen. Guess what? It's entirely possible that the "missing" print job went missing AFTER I ran it. I know--give yourself a second to take it in--but has it occurred to you that there has been a lapse of over a week, and a chain of custody including several DOZEN people, since that print job was run? So if 63 pages are missing?? It...are you sitting down here?...MIGHT NOT BE MY FAULT. Also, the pole up your ass is blocking my desk, so could you turn a little to the left? Thanks.)

Here's a paradox, boys and girls: I really, really, REALLY need a vacation. But I really, really, REALLY REALLY need to leave this job. And when I leave this job, guess what I get? Pay for my accumulated three weeks of vacation. And guess what ELSE I need? Three weeks worth of extra money. So here I am: vacation I need to take but I also need to get paid for, when I leave this job which I can't stand anymore because--among other things--they make it insanely hard for me to take vacation. ("I don't remember ever telling you you couldn't take vacation time," Amy once told me. "I just want to make sure that everything is done before you DO take it." And that--she did not say--will happen sometime between the appearance of the First Horseman and the Fourth.)

Goddammit, I'm a good worker. And I'm a great girlfriend. And I'm not a bad person. I deserve better.

But could someone tell me--which way is "better"? 'Cuz I'm lost--and this map I've got? Ain't helpin'.

Says It All, Really....

Angry Girl


What kind of little girl were YOU?
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O.M.F.G

Okay, first of all: three words which sum up my work experience for the past ten days or so:

Database, conversion, clusterfuck.

Were it not for my house, I would seriously consider just running a resignation letter up the flagpole and giving this place the one-finger salute. And were that to happen, I could say with conviction: it would all be Billy Corgan's fault.

The iTunes music store, of which I am a passionate devotee (lacking the knowledge to perform illegal downloads, to which I am much more temperamentally-suited) released all the Smashing Pumpkins albums for download yesterday. Which I was only waiting for for MONTHS...

I pounced. I downloaded. I have not--surprisingly--cried yet. (My major "Gish" memory involves sitting in my soon-to-be-ex-mother-in-law's basement, sitting at the computer which would eventually bring about my undoing, listening to "Gish" on the CD player, talking to JP on the phone for hours. The Pumpkins were the other half of the dream--ah, fuck it. I can't make any sense of that time, really, for anyone else. It's impossible to paint that picture; I Guess You Had To Be There.)

The thing about these albums--"Gish" and "Siamese Dream" (I have not forgiven "Mellon Collie" for its place in my memory as the biggest new release around the time of JP's death, plus I think the album itself was kinda bloated and self-indulgent. Self-indulgence I can forgive; bloated self-indulgence, not so much. Which explains a lot about my poor self-esteem.) Anyway, the thing about those albums is that they tap into the internal rebellion that I have suppressed for too damn long. I don't know when I started--I can only assume it was while I was with CR, rebellion being HIS personal territory and not open to mere females like myself--but I know it's still there. And I miss it. I have spent long hours explaining to myself that heroin is not rebellion, it's just something else that controls you--and changing the external agency that controls you is not the point of rebellion, is it. Sex is more rebellion than heroin--or it is if you do it right.

(Goddamn CR, anyway. Not only did he totally hamstring my vision of myself--which by that point wasn't too great to begin with, but it was MINE--but he's also completely crippled my ability to have a reasonable conversation about sexual matters with the person with whom I most need to discuss them. Or as LJ said last night, "You don't know what's bothering somebody til they say somethin'." Truer words were never spoken.)

LJ was gone most of last week; what was supposed to be a daylong trip to southern Illinois became a week-long ordeal, culminating in what had to have been a SERIOUS fucking party on Friday night. Saturday afternoon he staggered in the front door in borrowed clothes, his shirt open all the way down, his glasses lost in a puking-out-the-car-window event. He mumbled something, passed me wordlessly on the stairs, took a 5-minute shower and fell into bed, where he stayed for the next eight hours. I only heard the story a few hours later, as he tested his abused stomach on a can of noodle soup.

The best part of the whole situation--aside from my having the car the whole time he was gone, which spoiled the hell out of me--was that LJ is completely helpless without his glasses, and so he's been home every night since because he doesn't want to risk blind night-driving. It's been kinda nice, actually.

Last night when I came in after class, he told me he needed me to drive him on a quick trip out to Maywood. This was at like 10:00, which was just fine by me; I thrive on lapses in my normal routine, which--as I told him on the ride--is why people like me should not have normal routines. I also told him: "You've never had a chance to see the real me, because I've been dealing with so much shit at work and shit in my head and just shit everywhere. I'll tell you this: I'm much more interesting in real life."

And it's true, if by "real life" you mean "the strange little world I inhabit inside my own head, where I am much prettier and more powerful than I actually am anywhere else". But here's the thing, see: I know that world exists. I lived there for about eighteen months back in 1994 and 1995, and it's a hell of a wonderful place and I miss it almost constantly. In that world I will one day be a famous writer, and it's okay sometimes to just throw things over and start again; I make my own decisions and don't feel guilty about existing, and I can make ends meet without sacrificing my life, my spare time, and all my self-esteem on the Altar of Assholes. The sex is always good in that world and there's a guy there who thinks I'm completely amazing, and we have our own little mutual-admiration society and nobody works in an office and everybody runs around committing art at strange hours. And the soundtrack to that world includes a lot of Smashing Pumpkins.

Some pieces of that world are irretrievable; I know that. But the main infrastructure of that world was my belief that any possibility is open to me, anything I want to do can be done. And some days I wake up in the morning and I believe it again, and I get up and I get on the bus and think about all the things I want out of life, all the ways everything could work out just fine and even though I may never be THAT happy again, at least I could be happy again in a different kind of way.

Then I get to work, and all those hopes go down the drain the minute I walk in the door. If I'm lucky, I manage to pick up some small sad shadow of that feeling on the way home; if not, the feeling goes away for days and weeks at a time, and I plod through the obstacle courses they set up anew every day for me to navigate, listening for their catcalls as I stumble. Or even as I DON'T stumble; sometimes they just attack me for no reason, even when I'm right. When I'm right I'm not allowed to remind them; when I'm wrong, I'm not allowed to forget it. And even when I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to do, they find ways to make me wrong. If I completed the project, I didn't complete it on time. If I completed it on time, I didn't communicate enough through the process. If I communicated enough, I didn't communicate effectively. If I communicated effectively, I was too detailed. After a while I don't care if I'm right, wrong, or dancing a polka. And that's when they know they've won.

I want out. I want out so badly that very soon it's not going to matter to me whether I have a job lined up or not, or whether I can pay the bills or not, or anything else. Very soon it's going to be a matter of whether I leave quietly and of my own volition, or whether I have some completely-inappropriate outburst and they fire me.

That's where it's headed--and I've never felt this close to that particular edge before.

I Need A Geek--Help Me!

Any HTML geek out there care to tell me why, since I changed the site, bold text is now invisible (white-on-white, would be my guess, since if I highlight the text it shows up)??

Or how I can fix it?

Thanks...

THANK YOU Q101!!!

Last weekend, Q101--the local "alternative" station here in Chicago since 1992, which made it a major fixture in the better memories of the past 13 years--did an experimental thing called "Q101 on Shuffle". This was allegedly a giant mp3 player full of EVERYTHING they'd ever played on Q101 since their earliest days, played randomly from Friday through Sunday, and it TOTALLY FUCKING ROCKED MY WORLD.

Well, what I heard of it, anyway. I missed most of the weekend because of Tim--that's another story--and so I was hoping they would repeat it soon.

Thursday they announced a format change. Their new format? "Q101 on Shuffle." Apparently listener response was so overwhelmingly positive that they decided to make it a full-time thing.

People, they just played "Lump"!!! And earlier? They played Supergrass! And then they played the new NIN, and then Bob freakin' MARLEY!!

I am disproportionately excited by this development. Now, if only they would get rid of M@ncow....

If they play Dramarama or Bettie Serveert or Green Apple Quickstep or Smile or Baby Chaos or any of my other thirty-six bazillion obscure Q101 memories from 1992-1995, however, this blog will be no more. Because I will have died and gone to heaven.